Sermon Video: How the impending return of Jesus affects our lives now - Romans 13:11-14

The Apostle Paul's confident assertion in the previous passage that Love is the fulfillment of the Law, is to be integrated into our lives in light of the "present time."  What time is that?  The time between Jesus' establishment of the Church (and its birth at Pentecost) and his promised return to establish his kingdom (the End Times).  We live in an intermediate stage of unknown length.  Jesus could return today, or it could be 10,000 years from now.

So, what do we do with that uncertain certainty?  We live now in a way that way that we wouldn't be ashamed of if Jesus does indeed return in our lifetime.  We walk in the light, not the darkness, and imitate Jesus, while at the same time rejecting the temptation to sin.

Sermon Video: Love is the Fulfillment of the Law - Romans 13:8b-10

Where does the Law of God come from?  How did God decide upon the commandments that he game to humanity?  Love.  God is love, his Law reflects his nature, therefore his Law is built upon Love.

Thus God's commands are not arbitrary, they pursue the cause of Love, when his people portray what God has commanded, and seek to carry it out, they must do so by love.  When God's Law is silent, or we struggle to fit it to the context we live in, the answer is love.  Which is why, when God's people use any other motivation or method, we cannot succeed and must fail for we have failed to connect to the heart of God.

How Franklin moves forward, together: the Law of Love, Romans 13:10

Franklin PA from above, the 13th St. bridge to the right, and the 8th St. to the left.

It was a tumultuous week here in Franklin, things got real nuts online on Tuesday, it rose to a crescendo on Wednesday and then started to calm down, thankfully with things being peaceful on Saturday.  For those of you who missed it, a social media post by St. Patrick Parish regarding yesterday's downtown business fundraiser, the "Witch Walk", set off a furor of liking/hating, sharing, and increasingly nasty comments online.  That was Tuesday.  On Wednesday afternoon I posted this: What the furor over the Witch Walk in Franklin can teach us about Christian cultural engagement, it was well received (thank you all for the civility and kind words), and I followed it up on Friday with this: An observation about social media comment sections in light of the Witch Walk furor, and this: Light vs Darkness and the reason why Christians should be perpetual optimists.

This morning, Sunday, I just finished doing what I always do which is review my sermon one last time and make any necessary corrections or changes (typically they involve fixing my horrible penmanship so at least I can read my scratches).  I thought I'd share with you what I wrote about Romans 13:10, words that feel providentially appropriate to our community moving forward (for those who prefer the video version, the whole sermon on Romans 13:8b-10 will be available on this blog and YouTube on Tuesday):

10 Love does no harm to a neighbor.  Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Here is where the Apostle Paul gives a glimpse, "behind the curtain" if you will, at the principle upon which God built the Law of Moses and all prior and subsequent expressions of his will to mankind, such as this letter from Paul.  That principle is of course love.  Love for God, love for family, neighbors, and as Jesus expanded the idea, even love for our enemies, is the beating heart of the commands we've received from God.

This tells us a few things, among them: (1) God's commands are not arbitrary, purposeless, or pointless.  They have a rhyme and a reason, and it is love.

(2) Therefore, when God's commands are portrayed by his people in ways that are not love-based, or carried out by his people in ways that are not love-infused, we do a grave dis-service to God.

(3) When we come to an issue or topic about which God has made no law, or where our information from God seems to be difficult to apply to the present circumstances, our path forward is to say, "What does love have to say on the subject?"

(4) Which is why some efforts of God's people, individually or collectively, are doomed to fail because they're not built upon love.  Whatever the other motivations and methods used might be, they won't connect to the heart of God if they are not build upon love, and they, of course, will actively oppose the will of God if those motives and methods consist of hate.

Now, some will say, "That's fine on paper, but this is the real world, we need to fight fire with fire!"  No, no, no, a thousand times no.  As cool as Batman may be, we don't need a Dark Knight to advance the cause of Christ.  While it is absolutely true that methods that utilize anger, greed, lust, or pride may make a bigger splash, get more clicks, have higher ratings, draw bigger crowds, or achieve more sales, they will never have lasting impact for good because they cannot.  Why?  Because they go against the nature of God himself!  God is love, the only way to truly advance the Kingdom of God is through love.  It is far better to "lose" in this life through love, than to "win" in this life through anything else.

Light vs Darkness and the reason why Christians should be perpetual optimists

 

John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Matthew 16:17-18 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

Philippians 2:9-11

9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

    and gave him the name that is above every name,

10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,

    to the glory of God the Father.

We know how the story ends, right?  These three verses are but a few of those that proclaim where the true power in this universe lies and that set forth that at the end of history the victory of God will be total and complete.  So, why aren't Christians the most perpetually and undisturbedly optimistic people you could ever meet?  Honestly, I've met a few that bubble over with that joy, but they're the minority.

We are the ones who believe that Jesus Christ rose in victory over sin and death, right?

We are the ones who believe that he will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead establishing a kingdom that will have no end, right?

And yet, what we often see from Christians is fear and anxiety, something that is as unfortunate as it is unnecessary. Jesus told us to not let our hearts be troubled, that while this world would indeed continue to be full of evil until the Last Judgment, the ultimate victory has already been secured. 

This truth leads us to several conclusions about life here and now, among them:

(1) Whatever victories Evil has in this world, they will be transitory, whatever defeats Good has in this world, they will be temporary.  Our task is to continue to serve in the time and place where God has placed us.  We don't know when the End will come, but we know that when it arrives Good will triumph completely and Evil will be no more.

(2) The people, institutions, and causes which truly serve God have nothing to fear from spiritual evil.  While the martyrs have demonstrated that they may imprison or kill the body, and persecution has shown they may burn or bomb buildings, both the souls of those who are in Christ and the ongoing life transforming power of the Gospel are forever beyond the power of evil to corrupt in any way.

(3) Because Christ achieved his victory through self-sacrifice we are called to do the same.  Our weapons are not made of metal, they don't fire bullets, we don't need political, cultural, or economic power in this world.  The true power of God at work in us is service, kindness, mercy, forgiveness, love, and ultimately self-sacrifice.

So let us embrace the certainty of the faith that has been given us, set aside worry and fear, and go forth in love.

An observation about social media comment sections in light of the Witch Walk furor

Let's be honest, the uproar that ensued after this week's post on the St. Patrick Parish FB page about the Witch Walk brought out the worst in a whole lot of people.  Like many of you, I read a good number of the comments (before they were all restricted somewhere north of the 3k comment mark), and the vast majority of them revealed a level of anger, pettiness, and judgmentalism that we sadly have come to expect from the worst aspects of social media.

My follow-up post on the subject: What the furor over the Witch Walk in Franklin can teach us about Christian cultural engagement was received with much less rancor and positive interaction than the original St. Patrick post was written in response to, thank you to everyone for that.  Much of the difference can be attributed to the nature of the posts themselves, one inflamed passions and the other was trying to calm them, but I've notice a significant difference when comparing the comments that have since occurred about my post on my personal page vs. on 1st Baptist's page.

What's the difference?  For those who know me, at least well enough to be FB friends, the comments have been almost universally polite, even kind.  But on the 1st Baptist's FB page, where those commenting have been much less connected to myself personally (and my comments appear as the institution speaking, not a specific person), the comments have been significantly less gracious, with several veering off into being argumentative, even mean.  This same phenomenon held true when I posted the link to my blog post on someone else's thread, with those responding not being my own FB friends, but friends of that person instead, the end result was less civility, less grace.

{FYI, I've noticed this for years, as a person who maintains a blog, I share posts in relevant threads online from time-to-time, the reception of them there is almost always worse than when sharing the same content on my own feed only.  The level of misunderstanding increases, especially when it comes to people assuming that I have horrible motives behind my words.}

It is as if (and this is no novel observation), that lack of human relationship between people, even one as tenuous as a FB friendship can be, acts as a permission to be the worst jerky versions of ourselves.

As a Christian, this says something to me about fallen human nature, it echoes the lesson of William Goldin's Lord of the Flies that, "the beast is us," and it only takes the addition of a little bit of anonymity to unleash it.  It is a reminder of our universal need for a Redeemer.

When it is Christians, or at least those claiming to be Christians, who are using anonymity to behave in this reprehensible manner, it tells me something deeply sad about the health of the Church in America today.

But it also reminds me of something I've always known, something that buoys my optimism about the future: Relationships matter.  No matter how much of our daily lives gets sucked into our phones, social media apps, and anonymous interactions online, we crave real genuine face-to-face contact with people who know us and care about us.  We can't help it, our Creator made us as relational beings.  For this reason, I'm not putting stock in the future of online churches.  You can't get a warm handshake, even a hug, see someone else's smile, hear their laugh, when you're interaction is through a screen.  If your church, like my church, actually welcomes new people with kindness and genuine acceptance, you have something that people in this world need, and something that our society is leaving them more and more desperate for.

Long story short, we shouldn't be surprised that after the St. Patrick Parish's Witch Walk post went viral, and the majority of those commenting had no idea where Franklin is, what St. Patrick Parish is like (ie. that they run a food pantry that helps people in our community every month), or even the name of its priest, that the commentary became meaner, darker, and uglier by the minute.

Do yourself a favor, spend less time in front of a screen interacting with people you don't really know, and more time in the same room as people who know you, can grow to like you, and by the grace of God love you too.